[Peace-discuss] Chile's US-backed gov't is shooting anti-austerity protesters, blinding and maiming by the thousands

[David Johnson]

Chile
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/24/chiles-us-backed-shooting-protesters-bli
nding-maiming-thousands/> ’s US-backed gov’t is shooting anti-austerity
protesters, blinding and maiming by the thousands

 

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Chile has responded to anti-neoliberal protests with brutally violent
repression. 10,365 people have been detained; 3765 treated for wounds in
hospitals; and 2122 shot, 445 in the eye according to a conservative
estimate by the state-backed National Institute of Human Rights.

By Ben Norton

While the US government, international NGOs, and corporate media outlets
have relentlessly demonized
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/02/19/nicaragua-peace-media-international-ngos
-violence-reporting/>  the elected governments in Venezuela
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/11/life-resistance-venezuela-ben-norton-us-
blockade/>  and Nicaragua
<https://thegrayzone.com/2019/08/22/nicaragua-sandinista-revolution-40th-ann
iversary/> , the Washington-backed right-wing administration in Chile has
been violent cracking down on an uprising against neoliberal policies, and
with virtual impunity.

In October 2019, protests erupted across Chile against the government of
President Sebastián Piñera, a billionaire oligarch who has defended the
former military dictator Augusto Pinochet
<https://radio.uchile.cl/2017/09/05/cuando-pinera-defendia-a-pinochet/>
while cutting social spending and pushing further privatization in a country
where water is already privatized
<https://www.publimetro.cl/cl/nacional/2016/11/23/chile-unico-pais-mundo-que
-agua-privada.html> .

Soon after the demonstrations broke out, Piñera proclaimed, “We are at war!”
The president’s language evoked horrifying memories for many Chileans who
lived through the state terror of the Pinochet dictatorship, and for the
families of those killed by it.

The United States and allied institutions like the Organization of American
States (OAS) have long praised Chile as a shining example of democracy in
South America. But the country is still bound to a constitution written
during Pinochet’s dictatorship. Protesters have demanded a new constitution,
and a plebiscite in April
<https://www.abc.es/internacional/abci-chile-sepultara-constitucion-pinochet
-plebiscito-abril-201912210149_noticia.html>  could change that, if it is
not delayed by the Piñera administration.

A poll in January found that Piñera
<https://www.cnnchile.com/pais/encuesta-cep-enero-2020-gestion-gobierno-pine
ra-estallido-social_20200116/> ’s approval rating had plummeted to a record
low of just 6 percent, with a whopping disapproval rating of 82 percent.
(Compare this to a recent study that found that 63.5 percent of Nicaraguans
<https://www.tn8.tv/nacionales/483846-encuesta-53-votaria-fsln-elecciones-ni
caragua/>  will vote for the ruling Sandinista Front.)

But the almost universal opposition to Piñera and his right-wing policies
has done nothing to stop the US government and OAS from throwing their full
weight of support behind his administration.

With full-throated backing from Washington, the billionaire president
appears to have all the support he needs to continue his campaign of
repression.

State-backed bloodshed in Chile

A February 18 report (PDF
<https://www.indh.cl/bb/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Reporte-de-datos-18-febre
ro-de-2020.pdf> ) by Chile <https://www.indh.cl/quienes-somos-2/> ’s
National Institute of Human Rights (INDH) illustrates the shocking scope of
the Piñera government’s repression.

The institute was created by Chile’s legislature with a leadership council
appointed by various government figures, including the president himself,
the Senate, the Chamber of Deputies, and public universities.

Though the INDH is a state-backed institution, it has endured aggressive
intimidation by Chile’s national police forces, known as the carabineros.

State security forces have at least 14 times threatened members of INDH,
according to the group’s report. The carabineros have also shot tear gas at
the bodies of INDH observers, wounding three with pellets, and preventing
them from accessing detainees.

INDH’s report accuses the Piñera administration of carrying out the
following grave abuses:

*	arbitrary detentions of people who were peacefully demonstrating
*	excessive use of force
*	aiming at the bodies of protesters and shooting gases at them
*	shooting pellets at the body, neck, and face of protesters
*	use of tear gas on children and pregnant women
*	detention of journalists
*	deploying undercover police and military forces who did not identify
themselves

INDH documented security forces’ detention of 10,365 Chileans
<https://www.elmostrador.cl/noticias/pais/2020/02/18/a-4-meses-de-inicio-del
-estallido-indh-actualiza-cifras-de-victimas-de-violencia-y-alerta-que-persi
sten-los-casos-de-lesiones-oculares/>  in just four months of protests, from
October 17, 2019 to February 18, 2020. That is an average of around 86
detentions per day for 120 days.

The state violence has been extreme. Videos circulating on social media have
shown some protesters being run over by armored vehicles.

In a conservative estimate, INDH documented 3,765 protest-related wounds in
the past four months. Some 282 children were among the injured.

Researchers from the human rights body visited 67 hospitals and health
centers to calculate figure. Because the researchers only counted wounded
protesters whose cases were reported by medical institutions, it likely is
an underestimate of the actual number.

The report itself notes, “It is important to highlight that this figure does
not represent all the people wounded in this social crisis, rather it only
reflects cases observed and confirmed by the INDH.”

The majority of the wounded protesters, 2,122 people, or approximately 56
percent, were shot by the state security forces. Of those, 51 were shot with
live bullets, 190 by large metal balls, and 1,681 by small metal pellets.
(The munitions used in the other 200 shootings were not identified.)

Another 271 protesters were hospitalized from tear gas injuries.

Chile protests injuries graph National Institute of Human RightsThe source
of injuries of Chilean protesters, according to hospital cases documented by
the National Institute of Human Rights 

Shooting hundreds of Chilean protesters in the eyes

Among the most persistent injury suffered by protesters in Chile is wounds
to the eye.

Chile’s carabineros, or national police, have relied on riot shotguns that
are banned in much of the world as a form of crowd control, shooting
protesters with clusters of pellets that explode into tiny pieces of
shrapnel, cause grave eye wounds.

The National Institute of Human Rights documented 445 cases of protesters
suffering from eye wounds in the past four months. Many activists have lost
partial or even complete vision in one or both eyes.

In 25 extreme cases, protesters’ eye or eyes completely burst. And in nine
cases, protesters lost an eye completely; it was removed from their head.

“As the National Institute of Human Rights we are concerned,” the body said,
“that we continue receiving complaints and observing the existence of eye
injuries, regarding people who were exercising their right to peacefully
protest.”

These eye wounds have become a symbol of the protest movement in Chile, used
in signs, flyers, and memes.

Mon Laferte, a prominent Chilean musician who supports the demonstrations,
circulated the following cartoon depicting a blind activist telling Piñera,
“We’re very sorry that you can’t see anything, President.”

Numerous journalists reporting on the protests in Chile have suffered from
eye injuries and even permanently lost vision in own or both eyes.

Chilean photojournalist Nicole Kramm was walking with some friends after
dinner when she was shot in the eye by the police.

Kramm suffered from severe eye trauma, and says she now sees a hazy black
cloud in her left eye. She called it “something totally criminal and
painful.”

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 
<https://www.instagram.com/p/B6zCITupaXE/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=l
oading> A post shared by Nicole Kramm Kaifal (@nicole_kramm) on Jan 1, 2020
at 4:36pm PST

“How long will these crimes against humanity go on?” she asked. “Yesterday I
was the one frightened by the police brutality as I was interviewing people
who lost vision, today unfortunately it’s my turn.”

The Chilean photojournalist was also injured and nearly killed when
US-backed Venezuelan opposition members nearly ran her over with an armored
troop transport vehicle during the Trump administration’s attempt to invade
Venezuela with “humanitarian aid” on the Colombian border in February 2019.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 
<https://www.instagram.com/p/B5l_Yehl5Pt/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=l
oading> A post shared by Nicole Kramm Kaifal (@nicole_kramm) on Dec 2, 2019
at 6:31pm PST

Amidst the state repression of anti-austerity protests, far-right forces in
Chile are mobilizing. A network of extreme-right Pinochet supporters
operating out of Chile’s wealthy neighborhoods was recently exposed for
trafficking heavy weapons
<https://www.biobiochile.cl/especial/lo-que-debes-saber-hoy/2020/02/19/el-pe
rfil-de-los-formalizados-del-caso-ak-47-pinochetistas-abc1-y-fanaticos-de-la
s-armas.shtml> , including assault rifles.

Staunch support for repressive Chile from the US and OAS

1312 legal cases have been filed in Chile’s justice system in response to
the ongoing state repression.

But with Piñera government firmly in power, with powerful allies abroad,
justice remains elusive.

When Piñera was forced in October to cancel international conferences that
were to be held in Chile, US Secretary of State and former CIA director Mike
Pompeo said that he understood the decision.

“We applaud the leadership Chile has shown,” Pompeo said, “and are committed
to advancing our shared goals.”

Pompeo made this comment two weeks into the protests in Chile, while the
right-wing government was wounding and detaining thousands of protesters.
Throughout the violence, the US secretary of state kept quiet.

The US embassy in Chile has also maintained total radio silence on the
Piñera government’s violence against unarmed civilians. Apparently, the
embassy is too busy posting indignant statements condemning Venezuela
<https://twitter.com/search?q=venezuela%20from%3AEmbajadaEEUUcl&src=typed_qu
ery&f=live>  and reaffirming support for Trump’s coup puppet Juan Guaidó to
concern itself with the repression taking place right outside its gates.

Similarly, the Organization of American States (OAS) and its
secretary-general Luis Almagro, a staunch defender of US military
intervention in South America, have whitewashed Piñera’s repressive
right-wing administration in Chile, while vigorously lobbying for the
overthrow of the democratically elected governments in Venezuela and
Nicaragua.

Almagro praised Piñera in January, hailing “his work to preserve the public
order in the framework of a state of law and democracy, and measures to
guarantee human rights and the social agenda.”

At no point did Almagro offer a word of criticism. Instead, he effused,
“Chile is an invaluable partner for work in defending international
democratic institutions, human rights, development, and security.

As the US and OAS turn a blind eye to the rampage of Piñera’s carabineros,
Chileans are losing their own by the hundreds.

 

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